


Sheltowee Trace

by gwyllion



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllion/pseuds/gwyllion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The paths of three men (and one woman) converge (sorta) in a little-known illegal dive bar in the hills of Kentucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sheltowee Trace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [norgbelulah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/gifts).



_At trail’s edge, the turtle crawls  
Pauses, aligns, before crossing._

_Tests the air, with chunky feet  
The cold straight path gives way to sun._

_Men avoid such parallel lines.  
Junctions converge, testing wills._

 

“Hey,” the bartender nodded, acknowledging Raylan. 

Raylan tipped his hat back with a push of his index finger.

“Here you go Carol, Shelly,” the bartender pinched the cool necks of two Endo IPAs between his fingers, dropping them in front of the pair of dykes at the end of the bar.

A puff of frosty air escaped from the ice bin. He returned to let the metal lid drop shut, the sound of his question drowning in the din of heated conversation. Slivers of ice shattered into the cooler. The coal stove in the corner kept the place warm, even though the winter sunlight seeped through the cracks in the walls. 

“Pour you another?” he asked again, moving closer, kohl-lined eyes beneath long lashes.

“Better make it a double,” Raylan said, pushing the empty glass smooth across the countertop. He tried to keep his eyes off the guy’s ass and the tight leather pants that went along with his job.

It was only a job.

A job, just like Raylan had been doing, until Art called his hotel room in Evansville telling him to put on the brakes. The plea bargain, four hours- and two hundred miles away in Lexington, had earned the con five years in the State Pen. Raylan could release his witness to the safety of PTA meetings and soccer matches, to his wife and kids. Let that sucker enjoy something that Raylan Givens would never have by choice. Thoughts of a white picket fence home life slammed their way through his head on occasion, like the heavy metal sound of a prison door shutting and locking tight to keep anyone from entering. He had made that mistake before. It wouldn’t happen again.

He had driven all afternoon, nearly two-thirds the way home to Harlan. The winding road that diverged off route 421 looked interesting enough. The weather report on the car radio promised snow flurries for the higher elevations, but Raylan took his chance anyway. The Crown Vic hugged the curves of the hollow that threatened to swallow it whole. A half-dozen miles later and buried down a dirt road alongside a hiking trail, the building looked like it would collapse in a strong breeze. Raylan wandered into the bar, lured by its one-syllable name, and by its clientele, who watched the TV screen, uninterested. Johnetta was no Miami or West Palm, but for the first time since he had been shipped back to Kentucky, he had the opportunity to be anonymous. Like his witness, he had been set free. 

The guy in jeans with a white button down had caught his eye. Shaved head, but he was no skinhead, no sir. This guy was some kind of professional, manicured nails and expensive shoes. “Long day,” he said, sliding the barstool across the wide pine floor, leaving fingerprints across the sticky chrome chairback.

Raylan nodded to return the greeting, the whiskey burn creeping down his throat. “Vasquez?” Raylan asked, nearly choking.

“Hey,” the bartender repeated his monotone routine. “What can I get for you?”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” David said, jabbing a thumb toward Raylan.

“Jesus, I didn’t recognize you with a shaved head.” Raylan lowered his head and blinked, a small smile coming to his lips.

*

A half hour later, Raylan stood with his feet spread on the piss-stained men’s room floor. His groans echoed off the Formica walls as he shot his load down David’s throat.

Raylan’s sweat-damp shirt clung to his back. Steam hissed from a pair of leaky water pipes, the drainage staining an orange trickle to the floor.

He let his head thud back against the wall. Somewhere in the bar, a telephone rang. He quirked open an eye to see the flickering fluorescent light overhead, one bulb gone, zapping and flashing next to its functioning counterpart.

David’s palms landed flat against the wall on either side of Raylan’s head.

“I can tell you’ve lost someone,” he said, his breath coming hard.

Raylan lowered his eyes. Droplets of condensation dripped from the porcelain toilet, running down the edge onto the floor.

“What do you mean?” asked Raylan, squinty-eyed.

“You just have that look, that’s all,” David replied.

Raylan closed his eyes. He dug his fingernails into his own thighs, not wanting to admit his own loneliness, but too far gone to keep up his confident ruse.

“I guess none of us get out of here alive,” David said, lowering a hand to the rattling doorknob.

Raylan sank to the floor in time to hear the door shut behind him on its rusted hinges.

Girls had chased Raylan since he was twelve years old, but they were no match for the one thing he needed more than anything else.

That was how he ended up in the men’s room with his pants around his ankles, his head between his knees, and Boyd Crowder’s name on his lips.

*

The Lincoln looked like it had belonged to a teenager, or possibly a hoarder. Fast food burger wrappers lined the back seat. Sticky Coke stains dotted the dashboard. In one short week, the car began to take on the smell of an unwashed body. And then there was the blood.

The napkins had dried into rust colored roses strewn on the floor next to the console. A roll of paper towels Boyd stole from a gas station restroom and a spool of fishing line had served as rudimentary medical supplies. When the puke rose in his throat and the warmth of a bottomless sleep almost caught him, he came to his senses and followed the blue signs to a hospital.

The days of intravenous fluids and antibiotics to treat the gunshot wound threw him off the track of the machine gun toting woman that had robbed him of his chance to deal with his Daddy on his own terms. He’d never get back the time he lost in the hospital. He’d never be able to resume the chase.

She had led him south into Tennessee before curving west across the state on I-40. Raylan had confided in him that the drug runners were from Miami, so Boyd anticipated her departure from the most logical route to her final destination. She tried to shake him, but to no avail.

Boyd kept the 814JHT of the plate in his sights through the night and into the next day, stopping only for gas and grub. When they got to Nashville, she made a beeline north to Louisville where Boyd ran out of steam, collapsing behind the wheel in a gas station parking lot from the loss of blood.

She sped away from the pumps, the dust from her spinning wheels mocking Boyd’s pain. Boyd wished he had packed the rocket launcher.

The roll of ripped off paper towels absorbed most of the blood that leaked from his chest. It must have fallen out of his shirt when he stumbled into the Emergency Room. He swept it off the passenger’s seat and onto the floor so he didn’t have to be reminded of the pain he felt as he lay there on the concrete, grimacing at the paramedics.

Patched up, he exited the hospital and drove east, grateful for the sun sinking behind him that didn’t force him to squint into the glare. His physical wounds would heal. The damage to his soul would take longer.

He headed home to Harlan not knowing what the idea of home meant to him anymore. His followers, the people who depended on him for leadership, had been slaughtered. He last saw his Daddy lying in the dirt outside the cabin, with a bullet through his chest.

And Raylan had been there. 

Raylan was always there.

Boyd wiped his sleeve across his cheek, the tattered black jacket felt cool on his skin. He flicked the heater on before he noticed the falling temperature outside. The drone of the fan sent warm waves across his face. He stuck to the blue highways that ran like veins through the mountains southeast across the state. The passing scenery gave him time to think, although he had nothing sorted out by the time he reached the range that separated the eastern coal fields of Harlan from the western cities that Boyd watched disappear in the rearview mirror.

He had turned on the headlights when the sun slipped below the horizon. Keeping off the main roads, the paranoia made him think he might be being followed. He headed into the mountains to cross the low hills that separated Lexington from Harlan the only way he knew how. The dirt roads that wound through the hollows and copses were imprinted on him like the back of his hand. That’s where he went when he was in High School, when a quick fuck in the backseat of his Daddy’s car was the best he could hope for on what precious few opportunities he had. Boyd was never much of a ladies man. He always figured he had set his sights on something better. He didn’t know what that better thing was until a mine collapse forced him underground with Raylan Givens for seventy-two hours. Hell, they were just kids. How were they supposed to know whether or not they were going to live to breath the clean air of God’s green earth another day?

Boyd shifted the car into low gear as he maneuvered the LTD down a steep incline. The snow fell harder with the rise in the terrain. He had forgotten how many ups and downs the dirt road negotiated as it wound toward the east. The windshield wipers swept the flakes away as fast as they fell. He hadn’t even reached the higher elevations yet. He loosened his grip on the steering wheel when an occasional straight segment of road stretched before him. He left tire tracks in the fresh snow.

“Prepare for the jump to hyperspace,” he said coolly, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and flipping on the high beams with the other. Something about the rapid fire flakes made him remember that movie he saw as a kid. It didn’t take much for Boyd to become Han Solo. All he needed was one of his shaggy friends at the controls to help him head into deep space.

The snow streaked toward him, a thousand comets bouncing off the windshield before the wipers could improve Boyd’s vision. The wind swayed the pines. The road climbed so the treetops of the adjacent forest leveled with the car, no guardrails to cushion a fall.

Boyd fiddled with the tuning on the radio, trying to get a weather report. Not that it made much difference at this point. He would be home soon enough. He settled for a honky-tonk station, tapping his fingers to the beat until the shockwaves traveled across his chest to the healing gunshot wound.

“Screw it,” he said listening to the static as the car climbed another hill. At the top, he punched the radio off and the slight motion of his twisting torso was all it took for the LTD to lurch off course.

He tried to regain control as the car slid to the side, wheels spinning for purchase on the crushed gravel below the ice. Boyd felt a wave of sickness rise from his belly as the LTD spun over the edge and dropped a dozen feet into the forest below. His head bounced off the steering wheel as the car came to an abrupt stop when it became jammed between the pines. In the melee, the glove compartment flew open, its contents spilling to the floor. A half-dozen take-out menus, a tire pressure gauge, a few straws still wrapped in paper from the hospital, and a government-issued cell phone were flung across the passenger’s seat.

After an hour, Boyd opened his eyes.

*

Raylan fished around, searching for a pocket when he heard the familiar ring. He dragged his pants up over his ass and fastened the top button. Reaching into his pocket, his fingers slid across the metal of the phone. He flipped it open while he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror.

“This is Raylan Givens,” he spoke into the phone, taking a moment to run his fingers through his hair.

“Raylan, it’s Rachel,” the woman said on the other end of the line.

Raylan noted the hint of exasperation in her voice.

“Rachel, what’s going on?” Raylan asked. An uneasy feeling washed over him. He didn’t imagine the deputy marshal would appreciate the establishment from which he answered her call, but he noticed she was calling from the on-call line that routed through the Federal Building.

“Raylan, I just got a call from Boyd Crowder,” she said.

“Boyd?” asked Raylan. He studied his reflection in the chipped and scratched mirror. Christ, did he look that bad when he walked into the bar? “When did he get back in town?”

“He didn’t, Raylan. It turns out he’s been driving your car all over Kentucky while you were on babysitting duty,” Rachel snarled.

“You know what happened, Rachel,” said Raylan. “I filed the report. You know I handed the car over to him.”

“Yeah, well, a bit more than that has happened since you let Boyd take off. You’re lucky all Art gave you was a stint in witness protection. If I had done that, my ass would be on the street,” Rachel said.

“What’s going on?” asked Raylan. “Something happened. Where’s Boyd?”

“I just got off the phone with him,” continued Rachel. “He asked for you. He doesn’t want anyone else involved.”

“With what?” Raylan blurted out. He ran a hand across his eyes, massaging his temple with his thumb.

Rachel took a deep breath, “Raylan, he wrecked somewhere off Route 421, a Gravel Lick Road. He’s in the car. He says he slid down an embankment. It’s snowing in the hills.”

“You’re not sending him help?” asked Raylan.

“He says he’s okay. He only wanted me to pass the message on to you,” said Rachel.

Raylan could hear the staccato beat of her fingers drumming the top of her kitchen table.

“But-” Raylan started.

“He refused help, Raylan. I was lucky to get that much info out of him,” Rachel said. “You know how manipulative he is.”

Raylan opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the noisy bar. He strode over to the barstool where he had draped his jacket earlier in the evening.

“Raylan, where are you? Your assignment finished hours ago. You should be halfway to Harlan by now,” Rachel stammered. “I figured you must be near the area where Boyd crashed.”

“I am,” Raylan said, shoving a fist into the arm of his jacket. “I’ll head up there to find him.”

“Who do you want me to send for back-up?” asked Rachel.

“No, Rachel… if you can hold off for a while… I don’t know what Boyd has up his sleeve. I’m going up there alone. I can handle him myself.”

“Well, call in when you get there,” Rachel demanded, but Raylan never heard her last words. He threw a ten dollar bill on the bar and headed for the exit.

*

Boyd slid the government-issued cellphone into his jacket pocket. Its annoying ringtone grated on his nerves. At least he could easily reach it if he felt like he was going to pass out again.

Outside, the snow had fallen enough to paint a thick layer of white across the windshield. The headlights still shined, but the snow obscured the beams, lighting the area with a wash the color of cheap whiskey. 

Boyd huffed out a sigh of relief. The car landed with the lights facing the road. When help arrived, his rescuers would have no trouble seeing where the car slid down the embankment. Or would they? Had he even called for help? He remembered dialing something into the phone, but it was one of those pre-programmed jobs with only one number to call in case of emergency. Help was on its way. He remembered making the call.

Boyd fell onto the passenger’s seat. He could make out the bloody roll of paper towels on the floor just before everything went black. The engine droned on, pumping heat across Boyd’s face.

*

Raylan drove north on 421, the engine revving. He chewed on his bottom lip and adjusted the radio, trying to find something soothing that would calm his nerves.

“Boyd,” he said tapping the steering wheel. “What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now?”

Tanya Tucker sang her sad song about love gone wrong. 

_My parents cannot stand him  
Cause he rides the rodeo.  
My father says that he will leave me crying._

_I would follow him right down  
The roughest road I know.  
Someday soon, going with him, someday soon._

She was going with him, someday soon, but Raylan nodded his head in disagreement.

“Not going to happen that way, girl,” he said as the headlights cut a window into the night.


End file.
